Enjoy your glorious free market citizens. I'd like to call one person out in particular who lives nearby this to show them what actually happens when we follow their worldview, but that will probably get me banned.

If the frack wells are shallow and near the water producing sands, then they might interconnect. But my experience shows most residential water wells are shallow (Anyway, the easiest way to remove Arsenic (naturally occurring), and BTEX is to install carbon filtration systems at each of the drinking water well heads.

It's funny that you assume what I wrote is not correct. If you have shallow methane beds and set your well in them, guess what! You can light your water as it comes out the spigot. Granted, I do not work in the Marcellus Shale, so I make a few presumptions about the depths of cracking versus the depths of the screened intervals of the drinking water wells.

Now, if you dispute that arsenic is naturally occurring, or that a carbon filtration system would remove it and BTEX from drinking water, then you simply demonstrate to all that you would have done better not to reply to the post as it works wonderfully.

You can tell he was high of out of his mind when he wrote that article.

FTA "I would buy everyone in the world right now a frozen custard, just so they would realize how special the Jersey Shore is. And then they would donate whatever they could afford to the American Red Cross."

And how is it they allow people who specialize in the science of it THAT OBVIOUSLY KNOW BETTER lie to them about it?

Fluids and gasses found in (or placed) deeeep into the earth, can get pushed to the surface. (far out, right?)

Things that go up here, can fall down.*****************HI IM TEH SURFACE OF THE EARF*******************

Things down here can get pushed up.

Why do you think they needed to invent this thing called a blowout preventer?

So you poke holes in the earth, then you blast out caverns of rock to loosen up shiat and free the precious fuel.I'm sure there is no way that shiat will eventually settle, leaving paths for what is left down there to make it's way back to the surface.

And this doesn't even need to enter shiatty abandoned well caps and faulty casings into the discussion.

"Toxicology tests on the plaintiffs found the presence of toluene, benzene and arsenic in their bodies, according to the complaint."

...and how much did they find in the drinking water around the site?

How much was naturally occurring?

What level of "contamination" was found? Parts per million? Billion? Trillion?

The first rule of biased science writing: toss out a list of chemicals "found" somewhere, but not the amounts, and never tell anyone that they've been found in the water there since well before humans moved onto the continent...

cirby:...and how much did they find in the drinking water around the site?

How much was naturally occurring?

With the PA DEP and EPA, we may never know :P

It's an important distinction though you are right. If we do ever give a shiat about doing this responsibly we have to learn and separate the wharblgargle from the legitimate incidents that require investigating.

I usually don't like the "both sides" bullshiat, but in this case it's valid. Both sides muddy the issue so much it's hard to tell what is important data and what isn't.

When it isn't important people insist it is and it's the end of the world, when it is important it's marginalized, covered up, written off or the goal posts are moved. Or better yet they get courts to slap gag orders on anything damning (industrial secrets dont ya know).

And you'll find getting good baseline information is next to impossible. Again, stuff either wasn't tested for, wasn't tested properly, was tested well after possible contamination (hardly a baseline) or the records are lost.

Nothing approaching science, that I've seen, has surrounded this issue. There is too much money and too many risks involved. No ones motivation is legit study, it's either "NIMBY!" or "Get that cash!"

One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

MurphyMurphy:...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

starsrift:MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Nothing partisan about expecting responsibility from all parties.

I think there is room for responsibility to be shared. I think it should be the land owners responsibility to have the tests done before/during/after ...also in my little ideal world, the government would insist and verify that it happened to a more than satisfactory level of quality and impartiality.

I love how industrialists claim they're coming to the defense of the scientific method by asking for more details on the levels of these contaminants and how they compare to naturally occurring levels. Benzene and toluene would only be found in concentration together if it was artificially concentrated benzene (two steps in the process of producing concentrated benzene are toluene hydrodealkylation and toluene disproportionation). But that isn't even your main error here, knuckleheads!

The main error would be to assume that a scientist would say anything other than 'More study is needed' when faced with evidence of a public water source possibly being contaminated by nearby hydrofracking. But that's not what the Penn Dept of Environmental Protection did! Instead they brushed this evidence aside and let the Natural Gas industry continue along their potentially dangerous path.

Natural Gas has the potential to change american energy, and thus we are at a crossroads. Will we slow down this race to frack just long enough to ensure these industry practices that will soon become standard are safe and optimally effective? Or will we rush in guns blazing and just cross our fingers, hoping no innocent families suffer cancer or children born with birth defects due to our all-consuming thirst for profit.

washburn777:Natural Gas has the potential to change american energy, and thus we are at a crossroads. Will we slow down this race to frack just long enough to ensure these industry practices that will soon become standard are safe and optimally effective? Or will we rush in guns blazing and just cross our fingers, hoping no innocent families suffer cancer or children born with birth defects due to our all-consuming thirst for profit.

For the industry it's a clear case of moral hazard.

To them, it's so much easier and makes infinitely more financial sense to ask for forgiveness later than it is to ask for permission.

If they risk poisoning a family or a community or ruining X acres of land for the future, they already made their money. They will whittle down the effects of any litigation (that will probably never make it to them anyways) until it's insignificant to the bottom line.

It's the beauty of corporate America. It's a whole different set of rules.

They can commit what would be for an individual capital offenses many times over and on a massive scale and AT THE VERY WORST take a nasty stock hit, deploy golden parachutes and start over somewhere else.

starsrift:MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

It's funny that you assume what I wrote is not correct. If you have shallow methane beds and set your well in them, guess what! You can light your water as it comes out the spigot. Granted, I do not work in the Marcellus Shale, so I make a few presumptions about the depths of cracking versus the depths of the screened intervals of the drinking water wells.

Now, if you dispute that arsenic is naturally occurring, or that a carbon filtration system would remove it and BTEX from drinking water, then you simply demonstrate to all that you would have done better not to reply to the post as it works wonderfully.

Or do you dispute that?

Slow down. You seem to have missed the point that the fracking appears to be causing an increase in contaminants. Or, do you dispute that?

Who pays to put these filtration systems in? Those using the water or those extracting the hydrocarbons?

MurphyMurphy:washburn777: Natural Gas has the potential to change american energy, and thus we are at a crossroads. Will we slow down this race to frack just long enough to ensure these industry practices that will soon become standard are safe and optimally effective? Or will we rush in guns blazing and just cross our fingers, hoping no innocent families suffer cancer or children born with birth defects due to our all-consuming thirst for profit.

For the industry it's a clear case of moral hazard.

To them, it's so much easier and makes infinitely more financial sense to ask for forgiveness later than it is to ask for permission.

If they risk poisoning a family or a community or ruining X acres of land for the future, they already made their money. They will whittle down the effects of any litigation (that will probably never make it to them anyways) until it's insignificant to the bottom line.

It's the beauty of corporate America. It's a whole different set of rules.

They can commit what would be for an individual capital offenses many times over and on a massive scale and AT THE VERY WORST take a nasty stock hit, deploy golden parachutes and start over somewhere else.

MurphyMurphy:Nothing partisan about expecting responsibility from all parties.

I think there is room for responsibility to be shared. I think it should be the land owners responsibility to have the tests done before/during/after ...also in my little ideal world, the government would insist and verify that it happened to a more than satisfactory level of quality and impartiality.

Sounds easy... but we sure screwed it up here.

Yup.

liam76:Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

liam76:starsrift: MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

You missed the point entirely.

If there was sound and impartial testing and science surrounding the practice we would have definitive answers to our questions about safety and impact.

I know it's possible for fluids and gasses in the earth to escape. But I can only guess as to whether that is occurring with fraking. In science we base our conclusions on solid and impartial data and observations. An assumption (hypothesis) is only the very first step.

We don't have this data. The focus here is obtaining it. Accurate testing... not whatever you managed to read into my comment.

If the method they are using can be done so that there is such an incredibly small chance of pollution, and then if we are able to quickly identify when that might happen, we have a pretty safe plan of attack and a kick ass energy source we badly need. If it isn't, we need to stop doing it immediately, or at least isolate the practice to areas where we know we aren't going to be royally farking someones water supply up.

liam76:starsrift: MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

MurphyMurphy:liam76: starsrift: MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

You missed the point entirely.

If there was sound and impartial testing and science surrounding the practice we would have definitive answers to our questions about safety and impact.

I know it's possible for fluids and gasses in the earth to escape. But I can only guess as to whether that is occurring with fraking. In science we base our conclusions on solid and impartial data and observations. An assumption (hypothesis) is only the very first step.

We don't have this data. The focus here is obtaining it. Accurate testing... not whatever you managed to read into my comment.

If the method they are using can be done so that there is such an incredibly small chance of pollution, and then if we are able to quickly identify when that might happen, we have a pretty safe plan of attack and a kick ass energy source we badly need. If it isn't, we need to stop doing it immediately, or at least isolate the practice to areas where we know we aren't going to be royally farking someones water supply up.

Except the companies do not have to state what they are pumping into the ground as it is a proprietary formula(s).

The landowner is farked because, without that info, he/she can't bring a case to court and hope to be taken seriously.

a_room_with_a_moose:MurphyMurphy: liam76: starsrift: MurphyMurphy: ...One situation where an impartial state government would be nice. But the industry saw to it we wouldn't have that.

The first sentence of TFA notes this is a private well. While giving shale fracking permits, contaminated groundwater and such is the purview of the state, the cleanliness of the well's water and monitoring of it also bears private responsibility as well.

Without trying to sound Republican... government isn't the only answer here.

Haha,OK. So you are cool with people getting permission to pump toxic gasses into the ground under your house and you having the responsibility for making sure they don't make it into your house since it is private property.

You missed the point entirely.

If there was sound and impartial testing and science surrounding the practice we would have definitive answers to our questions about safety and impact.

I know it's possible for fluids and gasses in the earth to escape. But I can only guess as to whether that is occurring with fraking. In science we base our conclusions on solid and impartial data and observations. An assumption (hypothesis) is only the very first step.

We don't have this data. The focus here is obtaining it. Accurate testing... not whatever you managed to read into my comment.

If the method they are using can be done so that there is such an incredibly small chance of pollution, and then if we are able to quickly identify when that might happen, we have a pretty safe plan of attack and a kick ass energy source we badly need. If it isn't, we need to stop doing it immediately, or at least isolate the practice to areas where we know we aren't going to be royally farking someones water supply up.

Except the companies do not have to state what they are pumping into the ground as it is a proprietary formula(s).

The landowner is farked because, without that info, he/she can't bring a case to court and hope to be taken seriously.

Plus, as the people in the bag for oil companies have pointed out, you can't prove it is from the oil companies (even if you knew what was in the fracking fluids) unless you tested the wells before to prove it was new.

None of which is cheap or easy if you are poor.

Fracking shouldn't be allowed unless proactive steps are taken by the govt and or oil companies to test and prevent this crap.